


A Conversation With Mother

by OldDVS



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, no sexy times sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 11:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18620035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldDVS/pseuds/OldDVS
Summary: Draco has a conversation with his mother over tea.  Why didn't he have more siblings?  And by the way, about grandchildren....





	A Conversation With Mother

**Author's Note:**

> This was written back in 2007 and is set, as so many of mine are, in that nebulous place somewhere around the third or fourth book. Things were a bit lighter then.

Draco Malfoy looked over at his mother across the small table, watching as she lifted her cup and took a delicate sip of tea. Now was probably a good time, but he hesitated. Finally he found a scrap of courage and spoke.

"Mother? I would like to ask you a question. Of some delicacy."

Narcissa Malfoy looked up, her eyes narrowing a little as she considered his words. She nodded then, but her expression was reserved and he knew there were some questions she would not answer. And some questions he would get hexed to even voice. He hoped this was not one of them.

"Is there a reason I was an only child?" It was a reasonable inquiry. Most pureblooded wizard families had two or three children. A boy, a girl, in that order, and then one more, of either sex, just because it was the responsibility of the elite to make a proper genetic contribution to their world. As long as one did not go overboard about it. Draco thought of the Weasley's, and shuddered. He'd learned to appreciate some of their more useful qualities through the years, but still found them, en masse, disconcerting.

'Ah." That was all his mother said. Just that frustrating, ambiguous word. He forced himself to wait patiently. The expression on her face unsettled him more than he could admit, even to himself. She took another sip of tea and said, "Lord Voldermort instructed that Lucius have only one legitimate child."

Draco sat up a little straighter. The key word there was 'legitimate.' He put an inquiring look on his face and leaned forward. The expression on Narcissa's face had melted into pure blandness. Draco knew that meant she was uneasy, and hiding some strong emotion. 

"One child." Draco made his inquiry mild, and ignoring the more volatile concept for the moment.

"With his wife. He had other plans for Lucius."

Oh, hell, he thought, seeing a flash of anger in his mother's eyes. What had that monster megalomaniac done? It was hard waiting, but he didn't want to push his mother, for fear she would freeze up and that would be the end of the conversation.

"It was during his first reign, when he was in a man's body and had a man's inclinations. He was looking for a woman who was worthy of him and while he waited he used males for his needs. His inner circle served him."

The idea of his father as a bottom to the Dark Lord caused Draco to blink. Twice. A cool little smile flitted across Narcissa's face and vanished almost at once. He got the impression she found the idea amusing. 

"You did want other children?" Draco asked. His brothers and sisters, unborn.

"The daughter? Yes and no. I feared the intent of He-who-must-not-be-named. He had a habit of sacrificing the children of his supporters to the cause. He killed a Parkinson baby in his quest for immortality, if you remember."

He hadn't known. 

"But I would have enjoyed having a daughter. Perhaps also another son. But we did not dare cross the desire of our leader, and really, it was much safer for us all." Better to be unborn than murdered, her tone suggested. She studied Draco for another minute while she sipped her tea, and then said, "Why do you ask?"

Draco lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. She waited him out until he said, "It would be best for me if there were another heir."

There were several ways that could be interpreted, but Narcissa wasn't stupid. She had to have known her son liked men. She said, "Who has caught your eye?" Pure-speak for, who are you shagging?

"Harry Potter." He said it with the pride that he could not help feeling. It felt so good to say it to someone. Harry Potter. His!

"Oh! Yes. I see." She nodded and finished her cup of tea thoughtfully. Potter. A powerful wizard, influential, appropriate to be associated with, but unlikely to produce a Malfoy heir. "Do you wish to declare?"

"Not yet. It is the solution I would prefer if there was a second heir. I would allow myself to be set aside--with the compensation, of course! But if you were opposed to bearing more children or unable to do so, I would look for another solution." His mother looked like she was in her early thirties but he knew very well she was a decade older than that. The other solution was a sham marriage of convenience to produce his own heir. A tiresome, time consuming business with a large number of risks. 

"If it were to be done, it must be done relatively soon," Narcissa noted. 

"But you would be willing to do it?"

She appeared to be thinking. He knew that it would involve a petition to the court, conjugal visits with Lucius in Azkaban in whatever dubious physical and mental state he currently possessed until she was pregnant, and then further tedious court meetings to get the child declared legitimate. All to be done twice if she wanted both a boy and a girl. 

"Yes, I will do it. You will stand as godfather, of course."

"Of course," he agreed magnanimously. He would also have obligations if the children died, or if they were incapacitated. But then, it would also give him someone to name as his own heir, if he and Potter didn't find another way. He nodded and added, "Thank you. This is quite good of you."

Narcissa smiled. "I believe it will be advantageous. Your act will link our house to Potter, which will begin to wipe out the stain on our reputation your father's activities created, and with work, by the time your brother meets his majority, the family name will be reclaimed. One hopes so, if he wishes to have his choice of brides."

Draco smiled. The Malfoy money ensured that the boy would marry well, actually. But a better shine on the Malfoy name wouldn't hurt. He, himself, hoped to be wearing the Potter name soon. The idea of losing the Malfoy name had bothered him at first, but he'd grown to accept it as he'd worked out his plans. He'd been more upset at the loss of the Malfoy money, but he was sure he could manipulate Narcissa to settle the maximum amount allowed by law. Ten percent of the Malfoy fortune was nothing at which to turn up one's elegant nose. 

"Do you and Mr. Potter have...plans?" Narcissa was asking.

"We will be setting up a household." He couldn't help smiling at that.

"Will you? Do your plans include having children?"

Draco shrugged. Intense spells, nasty potions, and eleven months of pregnancy instead of nine, because one first had to grow the requisite organs. It didn't appeal to him, but Harry had agreed that if they decided to birth their own heirs, they would father each other's child. And the idea of joining his future with Harry so completely did have a certain allure. 

"I only thought," Narcissa said, "that if it was your intention, I would mention it to Severus when I went for my own potion. It takes a great deal of time and rather rare ingredients, to brew that class of potion."

Draco knew that, and nodded. "Perhaps you should mention to him that we might need that potion in the near future." 

They busied themselves with the cakes and other delicacies the house elves had brought. Draco wondered it the conversation was at an end, when his mother caught his eye again. She smiled and said, "Perhaps it would be best if you did not make me a grandmother before my own children are born."

Draco smiled back. "Perhaps our children will play together," he suggested. He could see it in his mind's eye, a pack of children, two with blond hair and two with black or brown, flying across the smooth lawns of Malfoy Manor on children's brooms. For some reason, the youngest child, with long black hair, was in the lead. Then he realized that, given that he was uniting with Potter, more likely it would be a pack of ten children, because the Weasley's, one lot or the other, would be over to play. If the Weasley's ran true to form, there would be enough for two Quidditch teams. Maybe that would not be so bad, Draco thought. He had not realized it growing up, but it was lonely being an only child. 

"Children," Narcissa said. She had been imagining how it would be, too, Draco suspected. "Perhaps I should thank Harry Potter for eliminating the Dark Lord," Narcissa said.

"Don't. He hates it when people do that. Mother," he said suddenly, remembering the beginning of this conversation. "You said the Dark Lord only wished father to have one legitimate heir. Does that mean other issue exists?" The idea was somewhere between horrifying and fascinating.

"Three."

Draco's eyes went wide.

"That I know of, but your father and I tried quite hard to keep track, so if there are more, it would only be one, or at most, two. You see, Voldemort," she paused to get over the effort it took to say the name, "had the theory that many Muggleborn magical children were only the result of forcing the squib children out of the magical world and into the Muggle world, and then a generation or two later, the magic would come out. He decided that diluting the pure blood was not good, and that he had a solution.

"He held the theory that squib children should be concubines and servants of purebloods. He made a habit of obtaining squib girls and women for...entertainment at certain Dark meetings. I don't know what his ultimate plans were for the children of these...meetings, but I know the families of the women were expected to raise them. He died, the first time, before he could bring his plans to fruition."

Draco thought that sounded like the old bastard. "I suppose he did something with the male squibs?"

"My understanding is that they furthered his experiments with immortality," she said, her voice cool, but here eyes showing a flick of disgust. 

Draco kept his own visage under control as he asked, "And my half-siblings? Are they...squibs?"

"I don't know. If you wish to find out, you will have to investigate for yourself. I do have a list of the names of the mothers." Narcissa was pouring another cup of tea for each of them as she spoke and he got the impression that she did know something, but was not willing to reveal it.

Draco head himself saying that he would ask for the list at some future meeting. He accepted his cup, but he was thinking that he could have been at Hogwarts with his own brothers and sisters, and never known. The children would have to be around his own age. Only a year or two after he was born, Harry would have vanquished the Dark Lord for the first time, and presumably Lucius would have stopped creating little warriors for the cause at that point. But when did he begin? Wouldn't most of the children be older than he? Full grown men and women. Would they resent their unknown father? Did they know about him?

Draco took another swallow of the tea and considered the wisdom of not mentioning this tangle to Harry. No doubt the Gryffindor would set out at once to find Draco's lost family. He loved Harry dearly, but what a mess. Imagine someone with Lucius' good looks, ambition, and magic, resentful at being cheated out of his heritage. Multiply it by four or five. On reflection, he really hoped none of them had met each other. Or married each other, for that matter. 

Still, it might be safer to find them, evaluate their power and influence, find them good jobs in significant locations, and play benevolent brother. That had been common enough through history. What the Dark Lord had never understood is that one could not abuse people and still expect them to be true allies. Draco, who had been raised to that model, had eventually been taught differently by Harry Potter. Well, on reflection, he decided that Tom Riddle had learned differently at the hands of Potter, too, but not in a pleasant way.

Not that he thought he would be using any of Harry's methods on his half-siblings. Draco spent a few more minutes trying to think who among his father's generation had squib daughters before realizing that the daughters might have been older than his father, who would have been only in his late twenties at that point. 

"You should come to tea more often," his mother said as the house elf whisked the clutter from the table. "Bring Mr. Potter next time. It seems it is time for me to get to know him."

"An excellent idea," Draco agreed as they stood up. His mother suggested a walk in the garden, and Draco offered his arm. Together, they went out to enjoy petal showered paths and pleasant fountains, and talked no more of children.


End file.
